Change of Scenery
by R0S3 TYL3R
Summary: The characters of Doctor Who find themselves in unfamiliar settings; indeed, unfamiliar bodies. A simple mix-up, or is there more to it? Slightly AU, spoilers up through season 4.
1. Ch 1: Captain Jack Harkness

**Author's Note**: I REALLY have to thank my beta, and I actually forget her fanfiction name thing so I'll call her Lauren Dixon because that's what she is on my email, anyway she's inherently AWESOME and gets all those little things I always seem to miss... plus she helps me with plots and stuff... that's how awesome she is...  
**Disclaimer**: O fpm'y pem Fpvypt Ejp.

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**Chapter One  
**

**Captain Jack Harkness**

Suddenly, Jack noticed that something was wrong.

The above sentence was an understatement. Not only was "something" wrong - _everything _was wrong. He could tell he was alive, and that he did have a body, but... it was all wrong.

He couldn't see like he used to. Not the same colors and shapes, in any case. He couldn't hear, either. And he couldn't physically feel anything, not in the way he usually did. He knew he wasn't himself anymore; well, he was, obviously, but he didn't have any arms or legs, nor a torso or a head. He didn't have any muscles -

Oh, wait. There's one. He flexed it.

A foreign feeling of alarm rose up from somewhere. _"...the bloody hell?" _he heard.

As he had noticed before, he couldn't hear anything. So, technically, he hadn't heard that, either. But it rung through his mind as if he had heard it, and it sounded like...

"_Doctor!"_ he replied.

He knew it was the Doctor! He didn't know how, but he knew it! He also had no idea how exactly it was that he responded, as he had no mouth to do so with, but it had happened, and that was that.

"_Doctor?"_ he heard, the voice twisting in confusion.

Another spike of alarm, this time so sharp that the feeling became almost mutual.

"_Oh my God!" _the 'voice' exclaimed, causing it to become clearer in Jack's mind._ "I'm the Doctor!"_

This confused Jack, if nothing else in his current situation did. Of course it was the Doctor. He didn't know how he knew, but he_ knew._ Something about how he perceived the presence of the Time Lord, he assumed.

Slowly, Jack began to realize that he _could _see, in his own way. An image filtered its way up to his consciousness. He recognized the inside of the TARDIS instantly, and his attention focused to the Doctor kneeling on the grate flooring by the console, looking at his hands.

"_Are you alright?" _Jack asked, in that way he just learned.

The Doctor in the image lifted his head instantly, his expression filled with confusion and alertness. "What was that?" he said.

"_Doctor, are you alright? What's wrong?"_ Jack repeated.

The Doctor stood up, glancing around the room. "Who's there?" he asked.

"_Call me Captain Jack Harkness," _Jack said, and honestly added,_ "Confused as hell, wherever I am."_

"Jack?" the Doctor asked incredulously. "Where are you?"

"_No clue. But I can see you. Kind of."_

The Doctor spun around. "How are you doing this?" he asked.

Something external suddenly grazed past Jack, and he shivered. He hadn't known there even _was_ an 'external', wherever - or whatever - he was, but now he knew for sure.

The Doctor stumbled. "What was that?" he asked.

"_You felt it, too?"_ Jack asked him.

"Well, the TARDIS shook, if that's what you mean," he said.

"_No, I mean the..." _Jack fell silent as realization dawned on him.

"Jack?" the Doctor asked, supporting himself with the console as he continued to look around.

"_Oh my God," _Jack said, and shivered again.

The Doctor stumbled. "Jack, what is it?" he asked worriedly.

"_I'm the TARDIS."_

"You're the_ what?"_

"_I'm the TARDIS!"_ he exclaimed.

The Doctor paused. "Oh, that's great," he said sarcastically. "Really. We're in flight, I don't know how this bloody thing works, and now even_ it _can't help me, because it's you!" He kicked the console. "How are we ever going to get back to Earth?"

"_Wait, you don't know how the TARDIS works?" _Jack asked.

"Who do you think I am, the Doctor?" He threw his arms in the air.

"_You're not?"_

"No, Captain Harkness, sorry, but I'm not." He ran a hand through his hair. "Well, I am, if you look at it from one way; but basically, I'm not."

"_If you're not the Doctor," _Jack asked warily,_ "Then who are you?"_


	2. Ch 2: Gwen Cooper

**Author's Note:** I WAS going to go on here and say "I'm updating this for two reasons!" but since then I've counted a few more. Basically, *counts on fingers* I got a review, quite a bit of people (compared to my usual rates anyway) pressed Story Alert, I'm still awake which is a big deal in my time zone, I really like this story, and this chapter had been beta-ed. That's... five. So, I'm updating this for five reasons! Hm. Well, enjoy. Oh, and because I want to. That's six.

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**Chapter Two**

**Gwen Cooper**

"Rose!" someone called from somewhere else.

She shifted in bed, half asleep, trying to get her brain working. Blinking, she finally worked out what the clock said on her nightstand: 10:14 AM.

Ten in the morning?

That woke her up. She was supposed to be at work hours ago. She jumped out of bed and grabbed at the first clothes she could find. Glancing back at her empty bed, she started heading for the bathroom, then paused.

She didn't recognize the house.

For a second she wondered if it was the forgetting thing again, but quickly discarded that idea.

"Rose!" someone called again.

_Who's Rose?_

She found the bathroom somehow, looking for anything to make her look decent enough to go outside. Finding a pink hairbrush, she glanced at the mirror and set to work, but then paused again.

Slowly, she got around to looking back at the mirror.

Whoever that girl was, she was relatively young, she had shoulder-length blonde hair and, judging by the mascara, had forgotten to take off her makeup the night before and cried herself to sleep.

She was frozen in place.

"What-" she started to say, startling herself with noise after the long silence. Not only was it noise, but it was unfamiliar noise. The voice of someone else. It scared her even more that the girl in the mirror shared her movements.

"Rose, hurry up! We can't be late again."

Rose... Was Rose the girl in the mirror? Should she respond?

"Um, I'll be right there!" she called, not taking her eyes off of the mirror. She glanced down at her clothes. Something depressing must have happened the day before, because not only did the girl cry herself to sleep but she did it fully clothed. She thought it was gross, going to work in the clothes she woke up in, but she _really_ wasn't in the mood to change.

"Rose! Three minutes!"

"I'm hurrying!" she called back, looking at the mirror again. She stared at the girl for a second before washing off the makeup, not pausing to put more on. She went back into the room and grabbed a random jacket before heading downstairs toward the voice.

"Took you long enough," an older, blonde-haired woman said, rolling her eyes. "Let's go. You're late."

She nodded. _I guess I'll just try to find the Torchwood hub when I'm on my own,_ she thought.


	3. Ch 3: The Doctor

**Author's Note:** My beta is awesome, and just because this is the third chapter I've posted in two days doesn't mean the whole story's going to be like that. Soon you'll catch me up, then you'll have to wait a whole lot longer. But don't worry, I never give up on stories. I might forget about them, but just a simple review is enough to remind me. ;)

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**Chapter Three**

**The Doctor**

The Doctor woke up from a nap to find himself sitting at a desk. Someone was standing in front of him.

"...you even awake?"

The Doctor looked up to see Mickey Smith. "Mickey?" he asked incredulously.

"Yes, that_ is _my name," Mickey said slowly. "You alright, Jack?"

The Doctor looked down at the desk he had been resting his head on. "Jack?" he asked, his head clouded by sleep. He wondered why he was so tired.

"You want me to get you something? You don't look so good."

"No no, I'm fine, I'm fine," the Doctor said quickly. "Jack, you said?" he asked, for clarification.

"You sure?" Mickey asked, lifting an eyebrow. "I don't think you'd qualify as 'fine' if you can't even remember your own name." He said this with a laugh.

The Doctor looked down at himself. Military coat, suspenders - he put his hand to his chest - yup, one heart. He seemed to be Jack Harkness. "How odd," he said. "Not something you realize every day, is it?"

"What?" Mickey asked. "That you can't remember your name's Jack?"

"Oh, no, no, you've got it all wrong," the Doctor said as he got up from Jack's desk and let out a long breath. "I'm not Jack."

Mickey laughed. "You're not?" he asked, thinking his boss was making a joke.

"Not joking, Ricky."

"It's Mickey," he corrected.

"Mickety-Mick-Mickey. So, found yourself a home at Torchwood, did you?" The Doctor looked around at the Hub. "Not such a bad place, once you get right down to it. Very Jack. Pterodactyl's a nice touch, too." He pointed at the flying dinosaur.

"What are you talking about?" Mickey asked, his smile having faded.

"Oh, do keep up, we haven't got all day. Or maybe we have. Not quite so sure right now. Hey, is that Martha Jones down there? And that girl, what was her name... Gwen? Yes, that was it, Gwen Cooper. I liked her."

"Jack?" Mickey asked.

"You really do need this spelled out for you, don't you?" the Doctor sighed and put his hands on Mickey's shoulders. "I am not Jack," he said slowly, looking into his eyes. "But you do know me," he added as he walked back over to Jack's desk.

"You're not?" Mickey asked.

"And he comes around! Kudos for you, Mickety-Smith."

Suddenly, Martha's shout leaked in from the center of the Hub. "Gwen? Gwen, what's wrong? Gwen!"

The Doctor jogged quickly out of Jack's office and over to Gwen's desk, where she sat with a glaze over her eyes, and where Martha was leaning over her, waving a hand in front of her face.

"What's happened?" he asked, wishing for his stethoscope.

"I dunno. One minute, she's fine, the next, she's like this. What do you think it is, Jack?" She snapped her fingers two inches from Gwen's face.

"Oh, I'm not Jack," he added, kneeling next to Gwen and looking into her glazed-over eyes. Something was there, behind the irises, something that sparked when she looked at him.

"Really?" Martha asked. "You're not Jack?"

"Nope," the Doctor said, putting a hand on the side of Gwen's face. "And, may I add, Martha Jones, you took that a lot better than Mickety did." He motioned toward Mickey.

"Well, I think I have an excuse," she said, crossing her arms, "Because I'm not Martha."

"What?" Mickey asked incredulously.

"Really?" the Doctor asked, intrigued, tearing his eyes away from Gwen's expressionless ones to gaze into Martha's. "Who are you, then?"

"Why don't you tell me who you are, first?" she countered.

"Would someone around here like to tell me what's going on?" Mickey said loudly, looking between the two of them.

"I'm not Jack," the Doctor clarified, standing up. "That's not Martha. _That's_ what's going on. Happy now?"

"That doesn't make sense, though," Mickey pouted.

"No, not quite, doesn't make any sense really, nope, not in my book. Now, I'm going to make myself perfectly clear. I have one heart now, right? Only one heart. And that one heart, it comes with hormones, even if they're not as bad as they could be, if I was, for instance, her." He gestured at Martha. "But I just woke up, and I'm pretty irritable right now, Mickety Smith, because I'm a human. Humans are irritable, and you should know this very, very well if you went out with Rose so long as you did -"

"Oi!" Martha said indignantly.

"-And got to meet her mother!" the Doctor shouted at Martha. "Women, I'm telling you, those hormone levels are off the charts. Now, Mickey, as I said before, I'm human, ipso facto, I'm irritable. I've only got the one heart, you see. So, be nice, won't you, and get me whatever it is Jack Harkness drinks to wake up."

"Doctor?" Mickey asked, squinting a little.

"Bing! Bing! Bing! And the award goes to!" The Doctor sighed. "Really, to be honest, I _am_ quite irritable at the moment. The drink, please?" After a pause, Mickey finally turned away.

"Doctor?" Martha asked breathlessly.

The Doctor let the corner of his mouth turn up. "Rose?" he asked.

Martha grinned and the two went around Gwen to embrace each other in a fierce hug.


	4. Ch 4: Martha Jones

**Author's Note:** Sorry I didn't post this earlier. Guess I forgot about it. Well, here it is now! ^_^

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**Chapter Four**

**Martha Jones**

Martha blinked.

She recognized her surroundings instantly but with confusion; she hadn't been here for a long time. As she stood looking down at a familiar surface, she wondered how -

Suddenly, Martha's head exploded. She fell to the ground, clutching her forehead, unable to hold onto a thought as a million different memories and feelings streamed through her mind.

"...the bloody _hell?!"_ she shouted.

The thoughts subsided as quickly as they had begun, but above all she noticed what had been wrong about her outburst as she opened her eyes wide and gasped. Her voice was wrong. Also... she put her head back up to her forehead. Her hair was wrong.

"_Doctor!" _something exclaimed in her head.

"Doctor?" she repeated confusedly in her alien voice.

Her hair was short. Extremely short. As in, didn't-even-cover-the-back-of-her-neck short. She patted her face; her nose was larger than she remembered, and indeed, all of her other features differed greatly. She put her hand to her chest and gasped.

Martha was hardly even concerned with the fact that her chest was extremely flat when she distinguished between two different heartbeats. One on the left, one on the right. She fell silent for a few seconds, eyes wide, feeling the two hearts beat under her hand.

"Oh my God!" she exclaimed suddenly, "I'm the Doctor!"

Martha moved her other hand to her throat and gazed down at herself. She was wearing the Doctor's signature brown suit, kneeling on the floor of the TARDIS. She brought her hands down into her vision. Even those were different, slender but manly in their way. She remembered admiring those hands, wanting to hold them time after time as she and the Doctor ran from...

Just the thought of her crush on the Doctor made her feel sick, because at the moment, she_ was _the Doctor.

"_Are you alright?"_ something asked.

Martha snapped her head up. It wasn't sound, but it reverberated in her head as if it had once been. "What was that?" she asked in the Doctor's voice.

"_Doctor,"_ the something repeated in her head, _"Are you alright? What's wrong?"_

She stood up, backing towards the console and glancing around the room. "Who's there?" she asked loudly.

"_Call me Captain Jack Harkness," _the something greeted, then added, _"Confused as hell, wherever I am."_

"Jack?" Martha asked incredulously, scanning the room for him. "Where are you?"

"_No clue," _he replied._ "But I can see you. Kind of."_

She spun around, searching for the source of the 'sound', even though she couldn't hear anything with her ears other than the TARDIS engines. "How are you doing this?" she asked frustratedly.

Suddenly the TARDIS shook, and Martha stumbled for footing. "What was that?" she asked, searching the console for grip and claiming it wherever she could.

"_You felt it, too?"_

"Well, the TARDIS shook, if that's what you mean," Martha clarified, supporting herself on the console.

"_No, I mean the..."_

Martha hesitated, waiting for Jack to finish as she stared around at the walls. He didn't, and she got more worried. "Jack?" she asked, recognizing the Doctor's voice externally.

"_Oh my God," _Jack said in her head, and the TARDIS bucked again. Her grip tightened on the console as a few lights flickered.

"Jack, what is it?" she asked, in that same familiar tone.

"_I'm the TARDIS,"_ he said.

Her hearts skipped a beat. "You're the _what?"_ she asked incredulously, her gaze dropping to the console's blue column, imagining Captain Jack existing inside it.

"_I'm the TARDIS!"_ he exclaimed, his voice echoing through her head.

Martha fumed. "Oh, that's great, really," she said sarcastically. "We're in flight, I don't know how this bloody thing works, and now even_ it _can't help me, because it's _you!" _She kicked the console, hoping that somehow Jack felt pain - more than her, hopefully, as her foot began to sting. "How are we ever going to get back to Earth?"

"_Wait, you don't know how the TARDIS works?" _Jack asked her.

"Who do you think I am, the Doctor?" Martha asked the column, throwing her arms in the air.

"_You're not?"_ he asked in surprise.

"No, Captain Harkness, sorry, but I'm not." Her patience was growing thin. She ran a hand through her hair, again vaguely surprised, to find the Doctor's hair on her head instead of her own, and decided to correct herself. "Well, I am, if you look at it from one way; but basically, I'm not."

"_If you're not the Doctor," _Jack's voice asked her warily, _"Then who are you?"_

She bowed to the column. "Doctor Martha Jones, pleased to meet you."

"_Martha?" _Jack exclaimed. _"Martha Jones! What are you doing in the Doctor?" _he asked accusingly.

"What are you doing in the TARDIS?" she retorted to the voice in her head.

"_There, you make an excellent point. We need to find the Doctor."_

"That's gonna be easy," Martha said sarcastically.

"_Just you wait, Martha Jones, we'll find him," _Jack said confidently._ "I'd guess he's probably on Earth, twenty-first century."_

"Even if we _do _get there," Martha reminded him, "How are we going to find him? Obviously we can't look for him, _I'm_ in his body." Hearing those words come from herself, especially in the Doctor's voice, was the strangest thing Martha had ever done.

"_We can start by locating you and me."_

"We can _start_ by finding a way to get there!" Martha stared at the console. "How do you even work this bloody thing?"

"_Hey, that's _me_ you're talking about," _Jack reminded her, offended.

"Oh, settle down, Jack. Do_ you_ know how to materialize?" She fingered some of the levers.

"_Oh, yeah, aced that class in high school,"_ he said sarcastically.

"Well, I don't know, try _something _at least. How can you even be a machine, anyway?" she asked, glaring back up at the column.

"_Didn't the Doctor tell you? The TARDIS is a living organism. The Time Lords grew them on their home planet, Gallifrey. She's the last of her species, too."_ His voice echoed in Martha's head. _"Better stay safe, we're endangered species, you and I," _he added humorously.

"You better find a way to Earth," Martha told him, shaking a finger at the column, "Or we'll be stuck out here in the bloody Time Vortex until the Doctor invents a way to get back to his own ship."

"_Good point," _Jack agreed. _"Let's get to it."_


	5. Ch 5: The TARDIS

**Author's Note:** Is it good or bad to update a lot at once? Because I have 8 more finished and updateable chapters, but it might not be good to upload them all today. x.x

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**Chapter Five**

**The TARDIS**

The TARDIS was numb.

Every type of perception she used to have was cut off. She felt dense and heavy, barely registering the various motions and sounds going on around her.

All she was trying to do was cope, but this was difficult - she needed the Doctor! His presence could help her through anything, as hers could help him. She began to feel light and dizzy. But she couldn't feel him anywhere. She couldn't feel _anything_ anywhere - except for her own internal pain. She couldn't figure out how to move, either, or get his attention - where was that cloister bell again?

Suddenly she felt something move, like a muscle, and just as suddenly the dizziness went away. Something in her mind registered the odd movement as necessary, and continued it on its own. She began to feel increasingly better.

Slowly she found more and more muscles inside her, and eventually, an especially versatile one close to her mind. Suddenly using it was somehow second nature to her, and she used it to manipulate the air as it circulated out of her, trying to get a message to someone outside.

She felt herself move, but not of her own accord. There was pressure, and then it was gone. The shapes moving around her became different. A sound registered very close to her mind.

"...TARDIS," it whispered. "You'll be alright. The Doctor's here."


	6. Ch 6: Rose Tyler

**Author's Note:** Well, someone said update, so I'm updating. ^_^  


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**Chapter Six**

**Rose Tyler**

Rose took a step toward Jack as Mickey turned, rolling his eyes. "Doctor?" she asked breathlessly.

The corner of Jack's mouth lifted and Rose looked into his blue eyes. "Rose?" he asked her.

Rose couldn't stop herself from grinning as she ran up to hug him.

"You shouldn't miss me _that _much," he reminded her, "Don't you have that other me at home to be happy with?"

"Yeah," she admitted, "But it was you I fell in love with, remember?"

Jack smiled and pushed her away to look in her eyes. _"Blimey,_ you look like Martha," he remarked.

"Is that supposed to be a compliment, or an insult?" she asked, lifting an eyebrow.

"I was just - it was - it's true, though!" he said suddenly in a squeaky version of Jack's voice, which didn't sound quite normal.

"You don't look all that much like yourself, either," Rose pointed out.

"Is that a compliment or an insult?" he retorted, grinning.

"Oh, just stop," Rose said, rolling her eyes. "We need to help Gwen."

"She's stopped breathing," Jack said suddenly as he looked over to her, his smile fading. He knelt down to put his ear by her mouth. Quickly he leaned her head back and began mouth-to-mouth.

It didn't take long until she started breathing on her own, but nothing else happened. "Gwen?" he asked, "Gwen, can you hear me?"

Slowly, her muscles began to twitch, and Rose sent a nervous glance to Jack. He turned his head and put his finger to his mouth, leaning closer to Gwen.

"What is it?" Rose mouthed, as Jack's eyes grew wider. She tried to listen, but the only whispers coming out of Gwen's mouth were gibberish.

"It's Gallifreyan," he whispered.

She hesitated, knowing it would be pointless to ask how Gwen knew Gallifreyan. "What's she saying?" she asked instead.

"She's... confused. She's asking for the Doctor. That's me!" he added, smiling a little.

"Here's your coffee, then," Mickey said loudly, and both the Doctor and Rose turned to shush him. He shrugged and put the coffee down on Gwen's desk next to Jack.

"Coffee?" Jack mouthed in disgust.

"What's he doing?" Mickey asked Rose.

"Listening to Gwen. She's whispering Gallifreyan."

"Said she needs my help," Jack added.

"Who are you, then?" Mickey asked Rose suddenly.

Rose turned to him. "What?" she asked.

"Well, if he's the Doctor, and you're not Martha, then who are you?"

She crossed her arms. "If you haven't figured it out yet, I'm not gonna tell you."

"She said TARDIS," Jack announced loudly.

"What's that mean?" Rose asked, taking a step forward.

He shushed her and listened to Gwen's whisperings. "By Rassilon," he muttered.

"What?" Rose and Mickey asked in unison.

"She's the TARDIS."

"Who's what?" Rose asked.

Jack stood up, looking at Rose. "You and me, we're not Jack and Martha, are we? Well, neither is Gwen!"

"Am I the only normal person in this place?" Mickey asked in frustration.

"She's the TARDIS." Jack's voice quivered with worry. "Gwen's the TARDIS, Rose. She needs our help."

"Rose?" Mickey asked.

"How are we supposed to help her?" Rose asked.

"She doesn't know how to function in a human body. We need to get her somewhere safe where we can take care of her. Mickey, get food and water. And find Ianto, we might need him. Rose, help me carry her."

"Rose?" Mickey repeated.

"Mickey!" Jack yelled in his authoritative voice, "We need your help, and we need it now. Go find Ianto, get food and water, and bring all three of them here!"

Rose lifted Gwen's feet as Jack carefully carried her torso. "Be careful," he reminded her. "She's delicate, and very confused. Any wrong movement could cause her to hurt herself or forget how to breathe."

They put her down on the infirmary table. Jack felt for a pulse, and sighed with relief when he found one. He carefully pulled Gwen's hair out from in front of her face, knelt down and whispered something indistinctly in her ear.

"Do you think she knows how to blink?" Rose muttered to him, glancing at her glazed eyes.

Jack hesitated, then leaned down and closed Gwen's eyes. A few layers of gathered tears escaped down the sides of her face. After a while, Gwen opened her eyes and blinked of her own accord.

"She's smart, she'll figure it out," Jack muttered, "But just imagine, being something as magnificent as a TARDIS for over a thousand years, and then suddenly," he made a disgusted face as he looked down at himself, "_human _happens."

"Oi, we're not that bad, are we?" Rose asked, elbowing him. "What about all those survival instincts and imagination you love us for?"

"That's just compensation for poor physiology," he reminded her.

"What is it?" Ianto asked, walking down the stairs to the infirmary. He spotted Gwen on the table and asked, "What happened?"

"How much did Mickey tell you?" Jack asked.

Ianto shrugged. "Nothing. He just said you wanted me down here."

Captain Jack sighed and shook his head. "Look, we don't have time to explain right now, and as soon as we get her taken care of we have to figure out what happened and where Jack, Martha and Gwen are, because..." the color drained from his face. "Oh, no," he breathed.

"What is it?" Rose asked, as Ianto looked on in confusion.

"The TARDIS. Me and the TARDIS, we were in flight. And the TARDIS is here. By the soul of Rassilon, who is the TARDIS?" Jack's eyes gazed into Rose's, fear etched into his expression. "How are they going to find their way here?"

Rose found she had no answer for that.

"Am I missing something?" Ianto asked.

"Yes," Jack said, walking over and putting a hand on his shoulder. "Do you remember the Doctor? You know, the tall, clever man you had to call in to defeat the Daleks when the Earth was moved?"

Ianto nodded. "Yes, I remember him. Why?"

"And do you remember Rose, the blonde girl who was with him later?"

He nodded again.

"And do you remember the ship they were in? The TARDIS?"

"Hardly," he admitted.

"Well, long story short, I'm not Jack, that's not Martha, and that's not Gwen." He pointed at each respective body. "In fact, I'm the Doctor, that's Rose, and quite frankly, Gwen's my ship, the TARDIS. We don't know where Jack, Martha and Gwen are, but the most likely situation is they're me, Rose, and the TARDIS, and that can't be good."

Ianto paused to comprehend what Jack had just told him, then nodded. "Okay," he said hesitantly, "What do you want me to do?"

"You're fast," Jack commented. "The TARDIS doesn't know how a human body works, but she seems to have the basics down. What we need you to do is make sure she stays alive, nourished and well, and alert us of any problems or changes. Got that?"

He nodded. "What are you going to do?" he asked, as Mickey descended the stairs behind him with water and chicken broth.

"Rose and I are going to see if we can't pick up the TARDIS' signal. Surely if one of the three of them are her, they wouldn't have the care to dampen it." He nodded to her and walked around Mickey, toward the center of the Hub.


	7. Ch 7: Skyward Troubles

**Author's Note: **Hmm, I didn't fully think through what exactly I was going to say here. Um, enjoy?

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**Chapter Seven**

**Skyward Troubles**

Jack tried to get a grip on what, exactly, he was. He knew he was the TARDIS, but he didn't know why, and he knew that the Doctor's ship was a lot more complicated than his current knowledge of it. So he was still waiting to figure out just how to operate.

Something suddenly scraped against him, painfully. He cried out, which was a strange feeling because he had no voice, and veered away from the impact.

In his image, the Doctor fell across the room until he gripped a railing. "What was that?" he asked, "What's that alarm?"

"_I don't know," _he told her, _"But man, TARDISes can feel a lot of pain!"_

"What do you mean?" Martha asked.

"_My whole... I don't know, side, is in pain right now. Serious pain. No idea what it is."_

Then, suddenly, he felt as if he were being dragged through a pool of broken glass. Shards of pain splintered into various levels of his being. He felt disoriented - more so than before - and began screaming for help.

"What's that? The cloister bell?!" the Doctor exclaimed, lights flickering and sparks jetting out from the console as he tried to regain his balance. "Doesn't that mean catastrophe?"

"_That's what it feels like!" _he yelled at her. He felt like he was being ripped apart, which is odd when you can't quite identify what limbs you have or where they might be.

The Doctor got up and made his way to the console. "I have no idea what I'm doing!" he exclaimed.

Jack felt like he was spinning, now engulfed by the pain, continuing to scream outward.

* * *

"This technology's actually quite advanced," the Doctor noted, exploring Jack's computer. "All it would take is a few minor adjustments..." He had subconsciously reached into an inside coat pocket, realizing that he didn't have his sonic screwdriver only when he felt a condom there instead. "Kettle and some string it is," he muttered, kneeling down to the computer tower and popping open the panel.

* * *

"Jack, what's going on?" Martha called, falling back on the rail after she lost her grip on the console.

"_I don't know!"_ his voice rung haphazardly through her head. _"I feel like I'm being split in half!"_

"What's causing it?" she asked, wishing she knew which buttons to press to help Captain Jack.

"_How would I know?"_

The cloister bell continued to toll loudly as the TARDIS, or rather, Captain Jack Harkness, groaned audibly and bucked.

"_The Doctor and the TARDIS are a pair! Shouldn't you be able to help me?" _

"How?" she shouted exasperatedly, clutching onto the railing with the Doctor's oddly slender hands.

"_Martha, all I know is that I'm in excruciating pain right now. Think of something, and fast!"_

She had no idea what any of the controls on the console did, so she marked all of those off the checklist. All she knew about Time Lord physiology was the ability to regenerate and having two hearts - oh, and use of the chameleon arch to turn to another species.

_How am I even hearing Jack's voice?_ she asked herself. Jack was the TARDIS. The ship and the Doctor had a telepathic link? Maybe... maybe through this link, she _could _help.

Martha sat on the floor of the TARDIS with unexpected flexibility, bracing herself against a railing. She tried to ignore all of the noises around her - especially that obnoxious cloister bell - and focus on that link between the Doctor and his TARDIS, between her and Jack.

Of course, she had no idea as to how to go about this. "Say something, Jack," she told him, in the Doctor's irritated voice.

"_Say what?" _he rung through her head.

"Anything. Just keep talking."

She focused on his voice as he complained about what, exactly, he felt like and what the equivalent might be if he were human. She tried to find the source of his voice, and followed it, until...

"_Martha, what are you doing?" _Jack asked loudly and suddenly, breaking her out of her concentration.

"What do you mean, 'what are you doing'? I'm trying to help you!" she said loudly, trying to hear herself over the suddenly-loud-again noise. "Now if you'd spare me a few seconds maybe I'd be able to actually do something."

* * *

"There we go!" The Doctor spun the monitor back toward him. "Good as new!"

"What'd you do?" Rose asked through Martha's voice.

"Just enhanced a few sensors, wrote some compatible software, nothing too difficult. Anyway, now we should be able to detect any -"

He leaned back from the monitor, Jack's blue eyes growing wide.

"What is it?" Rose asked, walking around to the Doctor's side of the computer.

She wasn't sure exactly what she was supposed to be seeing, but the bright blue circle that originated from one point and dominated nearly the entire screen stood out a bit.

"I think we've found it," the Doctor said, raising his eyebrows. "Either that, or there's a ship nearby in desperate need of help."

"How do we get there?" Rose asked.

"I would say we could use this handy-dandy time manipulator," he offered sarcastically as he sent a disgusted look toward Jack's wristband, "But we're going to need more than that. Are you sure Captain Jack doesn't have_ anything_ spaceworthy, anywhere?"

Mickey shook his head.

"Actually," Ianto offered, sticking his head in Jack's office, "There is something."


	8. Ch 8: Not Rose

**Author's Note:** You know how I said I had like 8 or so more chapters to upload? Well, first of all, I combined two of them (9 and 10, in case you were wondering) into one chapter. But then I finished a 'missing link' chapter (13) and so now all the chapters I had finished after it (14-17) are available. So now I have like... 8 chapters... O_o

* * *

**Chapter Eight**

**Not Rose**

Gwen had convinced the woman, whose name seemed to be Jackie, that she forgot just where her work exactly was, which the woman took in stride. "Oh, John's in the garage, if you wanted to drop by," Jackie reminded her, and Gwen wondered who John was. "He told me to tell you that, poor bloke would be nowhere without you. Go on, you're gonna be late."

With that, Gwen hopped out of the car, looking, once again, at all of the zeppelins hanging about in the sky. She wondered how they got there. This was London, correct? She didn't remember London with all those zeppelins.

She made her way to the front door. The lobby of the place was _huge, _with a black carpet floor and tall, marble walls. "Excuse me," she asked the front desk, "Sorry, but I forget where the garage is." She couldn't very well say that she forgot where she worked, could she?

"Well, welcome back to Torchwood, Rose, have a long weekend?"

Gwen looked up at the receptionist._ Torchwood? _she wondered. "Um, yeah, sorry, my mind got mixed up a bit," she said, and the receptionist told her the way to the garage.

The garage was even bigger than the lobby. It housed three huge, silver zeppelins and still had room for two more. There was only one person in here, and he was muttering to himself as he messed with something on the side of the middle zeppelin.

"John?" she called, hoping that was him. Her voice echoed through the huge, cold, metal room.

The man looked up, and grinned. "Rose!" he answered, putting down his things to run over to her. He kissed her on the lips and held up a piece of junk triumphantly. "Found it!" he said, his smile shining white teeth.

Gwen knew she knew this man, but her thoughts were momentarily fuzzy and incoherent. She hadn't expected that kiss. She shook her head and looked up, finally recognizing him. "You're the Doctor," she said incredulously.

He lifted an eyebrow. "Five points for stating the obvious," he muttered. "Look, I've found it!"

She wasn't even curious as to what he had found. "Doctor?" she asked. "Maybe _you _can help me, then."

"Help you with what?" he asked, suddenly not so excited about what he had found or why she hadn't asked about it.

How was she going to explain this to him? "I..." Suddenly she was at a loss for words.

"What is it?" he asked attentively.

"I'm not Rose," she said, and suddenly realized that Rose's name and face _did_ look familiar to her.

His smile faded. "What do you mean?" he asked seriously, the piece of scrap metal lowering to the ground.

"I mean I'm not Rose," she repeated.

"Who are you, then?" he asked warily, eyeing Gwen up and down.

"Gwen Cooper. From Torchwood?" She hoped the clarification would help him.

The Doctor's eyebrows lifted in realization. "Oh, yes! Gwen Cooper! Right." He nodded. "I liked her."

"Um, thanks. So do you think you can help me?"

He took a deep breath, putting the junk down with a clang and running a hand through his hair. "Well, obviously, I'll do whatever I can," he told her, "But I don't even know where to start. There's no Gwen Cooper in this universe."

"This universe?" Gwen asked.

"Oh... right, you don't know. You see, this isn't your universe. It's a parallel dimension, where most things are the same, but with significant differences. For instance, the zeppelins." He motioned at the three giant balloons.

Gwen took a breath as she stared at the zeppelins. "So... that would mean that Rose..."

"Presumably, I would think that Rose is back on your dimension." He sighed. "Blimey, that girl does a lot of dimension-jumping. You'd think it's a hobby of hers. She should get a Frequent Void-er badge."

"Sorry?" Gwen asked.

"Right! Where do you suggest we start?"

Gwen paused, pressed into thinking quickly. "Cardiff?" she asked.

The Doctor thought for a second. "Not bad. Rift there might be a help. Care for a road trip?" He grinned.

"Can't we just, you know, take your, ship thing?" she asked.

"That's TARDIS, Time And Relative Dimensions In Space, and no, we can't. I don't have her."

"Where is it - she, then?"

"The Doctor has her."

Gwen stared at him confusedly.

"What?" he asked. "How much exactly did Jack tell you about what happened?"

"Not much," she admitted.

The Doctor sighed. "Well, long story short, I'm not really, technically, the Doctor you know. Jack had the Doctor's hand, and it absorbed all of the Doctor's regenerative energy when he died, and Donna touched it, and I grew out of it, and so I'm like the Doctor in a lot of ways, just that I'm human, mostly."

Gwen hesitated. "What?" she asked.

"I'll tell you on the way," he told her. "Let's take this one." He led her to the zeppelin to the left of the one he had been working on.


	9. Ch 9: Rescuing the Doctor

**Author's Note:** Sorry it took so long to update, to be honest I kind of forgot. ^_^'' but I love this story and I have quite a few more completed chapters, reviews help me remember what I'm doing. Anyway, enjoy!

* * *

**Chapter Nine**

**Rescuing the Doctor**

Captain Jack's form strutted quickly towards the infirmary and made its way to Gwen's side. She moved her eyes, still muttering, and locked her gaze onto Jack's face.

"She's looking for the Doctor," he explained. "She's upset that she can't find him anywhere." He sighed and knelt next to her. "She's only human, so she can't sense that I _am _the Doctor. All she has to go by is what she remembers of my image."

"Why is she muttering like that?" Rose asked, leaning on the railing.

"Speaking is the only way for humans to express their thoughts externally. She's used to openly telling me what's on her mind and how she feels all the time, not telling me in the literal sense of the word but more of a kind of sensory thing. I can kind of hear it in the way she's humming; there aren't actual words involved. It's quite hard to describe. The point is, she can't quite do that in the same way anymore." He paused and leaned closer to her, listening closer. "She knows what I'm saying," he discovered.

"What do you mean?" Mickey asked as Ianto walked in with Jack's coffee, having thrown out Mickey's version, which had gotten cold on Gwen's desk and wouldn't have been very good anyway.

"She understands me. She can hear what I'm saying. She's confused." He leaned back down to her ear and whispered something to her. Gwen turned her head and looked at Jack, blinking, still muttering. He nodded and muttered back at her.

"Can't imagine what she's going through," Rose said to Mickey.

He eyed her. "Can't you?" he asked, seeing Martha's body shrug.

"Well, yeah, on a lesser scale," she admitted. "And what about whoever's the TARDIS? What are they going through?"

It didn't take long to convince the TARDIS that it was the Doctor, and not Captain Jack, muttering into her ear. She was a smart girl. He told her what had happened, and she was as worried as him about who might be the TARDIS and what they might be doing.

"Let's get you up," he said, wrapping his arms around Gwen's torso and bringing her to a sitting position. "Better?" he asked.

"She alright?" Rose asked, walking down a few steps.

The Doctor put an arm out towards her. "Give her space," he advised.

The TARDIS hesitated, and the Doctor helped her figure out where her leg muscles were. She kept to mumbling Gallifreyan, and the Doctor kept listening intently, as to not miss anything. He and Rose helped her toward the staircase.

"She coming with us, then?" Mickey asked.

"Yup," Captain Jack's voice replied as Gwen's form ascended the stairs.

* * *

Gwen's mouth seemed to be always moving. Her constant muttering in Gallifreyan soon became a background hum to everyone except the Doctor, who kept half of his mind consciously analyzing her every word.

The ship they found themselves in was similar to Jack's original stolen Chula one in various ways, including its small size and invisibility, but it was its unique composition of spare parts that made it its own class of vehicle. The Doctor couldn't think of any unidimensional ship more complicated to fly.

Even with the ship's confusing makeup, he managed to hook up a component to its sensors and without many complications aside from the occasional inflamed device. In the end, he synchronized the sensors with the TARDIS's signal and it alarmed the Doctor by locking on immediately. Digging through the time vortex should have taken ages. His ship had made it to this specific time and place, and the Doctor doubted that goal had been achieved on purpose.

The condition of the TARDIS as it spun through space didn't seem that great. Quickly the Doctor roped it with the tractor beam that Jack had luckily installed while Gwen, still in Gallifreyan, commented on the TARDIS' rough appearance.

As soon as he could, he led Mickey and Rose into the storage room, navy blue coat billowing behind him. Why the ship put the TARDIS in the storage room, he'd never know.

The Doctor opened the blue door and the rough smell of smoke instantly assaulted his nostrils. "Turn around!" he turned to shout at Mickey, "Take us straight back to Cardiff!" With that, he ran headfirst into the ship, covering his mouth and nose with Captain Jack's thick sleeve.

The inside of the TARDIS was a mess. The cloister bell reverberated throughout the ship, and there were sparks and smoke rising from the console, filling the air with the smell of burnt rubber. And the Doctor, the thin, brown-haired physical version of the Doctor, sat against a rail, head in hand, deep in thought.

The Doctor jogged quickly to himself and yelled over the cloister bell, "Are you alright?"

The Time Lord broke concentration and a jet of steam erupted from below the grate flooring. "Jack?" he asked confusedly, coughing through the smoke.

Jack Harkness's arms gripped the Doctor's torso and helped him out of the TARDIS. "Sorry!" the weak Time Lord shouted into the TARDIS as the real one shut its doors.

The two Doctors stumbled into the main (and only real) room in Jack's small ship, the Time Lord still wheezing. Rose helped lower him into a chair while he stared at her as if she were a ghost.

"What happened?" Rose asked.

The Doctor knelt to be at eye level with himself. "If you don't mind my asking," he began, "Who are you?"

* * *

"Are you alright?"

Just like that, all of the obnoxious sounds and smells came rocketing back into Martha's consciousness. The cloister bell tolled loudly, nearly drowning out the voice of Captain Jack, whose hazy form stood before her, surrounded by smoke. Her throat felt raw as she breathed in the serrated air, and, as an immediate reflex, coughed into her elbow.

"_Martha!" _A jet of steam shot out of somewhere, but Martha didn't notice; between coughs, and squinting through the shroud of smoke, she gazed confusedly at the embodiment of Captain Jack Harkness.

"Jack?" she asked, gasping for breath. He couldn't be in two places at once, could he? There was... something important that had happened which would perfectly explain this, she knew there was... but she couldn't think well. Grey blotchiness was blanking out most of her brain. And she felt like she should stay away from the man helping her up. All of this mixed in her mind until she felt like she were mentally wading through sludge, like her world was only partially real and everything would be better if she just passed out.

Silently, Jack grabbed the Doctor's arm and began rushing her from the TARDIS.

"_Wait! Who is that? Don't leave! Martha!"_

"Sorry!" she called back, coughing too hard to add more, and too tired to turn back for him as Jack's physical form shut the doors and led her toward a chair. She was grateful for the fresh air and, still coughing, blinked and shook her head.

"Is he alright?" a familiar voice asked alarmingly close to Martha's ear as she sat down, her throat finally letting off. She whipped her head around and gaped at herself, who was looking over her with concern.

"If you don't mind my asking," Jack said on her other side, and Martha ripped her gaze from herself. "Who are you?"

Martha shook her head. She could only think so many thoughts at once when three quarters of her brain couldn't operate, and it didn't help that something felt off about the Captain. "He's falling apart," she told them, "And if I'm not there to help, who knows what'll happen to him!"

"Him who?" Jack asked._ "Jack?"_

Martha creased her eyebrows at him and reluctantly nodded, attempting to focus her gaze on him.

"Jack Harkness is my TARDIS?" he exclaimed. "By the soul of Rassilon!"

"Jack?" she asked confusedly; that wasn't a phrase Captain Jack used often.

"Right," he looked at her. "Get some rest. Rose," he turned to the other Martha, "help him - or, her. Me. Him. Make sure she doesn't go anywhere." Jack glanced back at Martha with his blue eyes before leaving for the cramped cockpit.

"Rose?" Martha asked herself, who was pulling up a seat next to her.

"Shh, now get some rest," the other Martha - Rose? - advised, clearly uncomfortable. "We're going back to Torchwood. Jack's going to feel better on the dimensional rift, yeah? Everything's fine."

So many things in front of her sounded wrong, but Martha couldn't agree more that she needed sleep. "But he's in pain," she argued weakly, shutting her eyelids, which didn't bother to open again while she drifted into sleep.

* * *

Rose patted the Doctor-who-isn't-the-Doctor on the arm somewhat uncomfortably and watched him drift easily to sleep. He looked so cute when he was asleep, not unlike a cozy little puppy. She brushed some stray hair from his face and thought about all those nights when the two of them would cuddle under the blankets, rain pounding the window, comfortable in each other's silence...

Rose blinked and pulled away from him. This was the wrong Doctor - she couldn't think of him like that. Her John, back at home, was the one she would cuddle with at night. This Doctor would go red and think of some excuse to get away if she so much as hinted at the thought.

She got up, putting her hands in the pockets of Martha's leather jacket. She missed the original Doctor - John was different in his ways that were both good and bad to her - but she knew she'd have to go back to her universe soon. She missed being close with the human Doctor almost as much as she had missed the original one.


	10. Ch 10: Return to Cardiff?

**Author's Note:** Sorry about the unexpected hiatus. I do have more chapters for this story to put up. But, I don't have an ending yet, so don't get your hopes up. I'm in the middle of several other projects so this one slipped my mind.  
Remember, if you read Freeze then you'll know, reviews DO help!

* * *

** Chapter Ten**

**Return to Cardiff?**

Martha jolted awake. She blinked and looked around; she was in some kind of ship. And she was a little sore from sleeping in a chair. But most of all, she felt an eerie vibration coming from a storage closet. It was really small, and pretty far back in her mind, but it was there, and it was eerie.

She got up and smoothed out the Doctor's pinstripe suit - remembering with a second of shock that she was the Doctor - and walked over to the closet. When she opened the door, she was slightly surprised to find the TARDIS sitting there.

This was most definitely where the vibrations were coming from. They didn't make her feel off-put or dizzy, like she expected; quite the contrary, she felt like it were perfectly natural to feel these things. But what the vibration brought, a dull, offhand sense of being rubbed with sandpaper, wasn't so comfortable.

When she opened the TARDIS door, the dulled pain only increased.

"_Martha!" _Jack's voice shouted in her head._ "Where have you been?!"_

She blinked and took a step back. He sounded like he was at the end of his rope. "Sorry, I-" She paused to remember what had happened, and her nose became irritated again with the rough assault of smoke. "You took me out of here!" she answered, coughing through the thick air and her eyes watering.

The cloister bell still tolled, and she had the feeling that it had been the entire time she was asleep. In spite of this, Jack's voice rung loud and clear in Martha's head._ "I what?" _he asked her.

"You - the _other_ you you - came in and -" She covered her ears, sideburns feeling odd and unnatural against her palm, but that didn't do any help. She breathed hot, burnt air. "Could you stop that bell?" she shouted, and coughed.

"_No!" _Jack replied._ "I'm in too much pain! And I don't know how to anyway! Concentrate on me again - I can't calm down!"_

"I don't know if I can!"

Captain Jack's head chose this time to pop in the door. "Gwen! Martha! Doctor! Get out of there!" he shouted, grabbing Martha's sleeve and pulling her out of the TARDIS and just outside of the storage closet.

"What'd you do that for?" she asked him irritatedly, coughing again to the side.

"You don't know how the TARDIS works," he explained, "Jack doesn't even know how the TARDIS works. If you touch anything in there you might end up back in the Time Vortex and we might never be able to find you."

She scrunched her eyes; it nearly hurt her eyes to look at him, and the dulled second-sense pain vibrating from the TARDIS didn't help. "But he's in pain!" she exclaimed.

"Yes, and what are you going to do about that? You don't know how anything in there works!" He motioned toward the door.

"Yes, but I was helping!"

"How? How could you possibly help?"

She shrugged angrily, glaring at him in spite of his errant wrongness. "I don't know, I just concentrated and he began to feel better!"

He turned his head to the side. "How'd you manage that?" he asked in a normal tone.

"I don't know," she explained, looking away again.

"It took me years to figure out how that worked, and even then I was a heck of a lot smarter than you." He crossed his arms and leaned against the wall, defeated.

"Doctor?" Martha asked hesitantly, glancing back at him warily.

He looked up at her. "Yep, that's me," he said, smiling. "And you're either Gwen or Martha, correct?"

She nodded. "Martha. But what_ happened _to us?" she asked, putting a hand over her eyes to rub her temples. The pain from the vibrations only seemed real in the back of her head, where it nagged at her incessantly.

"Beats me." He shrugged and crossed his eyebrows, looking at her. Then they widened. "Oh, right! Sorry. Got used to it. Let's go over here, shall we?" He led her to the opposite side of the room, where the vibrations lessened, becoming more akin to the nagging sensation commonly associated with the idea of having left something on.

"Thanks," she said simply, leaning against the wall and lowering herself to the floor. "We almost at Cardiff?" she asked.

He sighed. "Actually, it's taking a surprisingly long time to get there. We've run into some, ah, technical difficulties. Easily fixed."

She lifted an eyebrow.

"Well, easily fixed compared to other things I've fixed in the past. Won't take long."

"Then what were you doing getting me out of the TARDIS?" she asked.

"Didn't want you messing with anything. Stay out of there." He shook Jack's finger at her. "Now, I'm going back to fix this ship. Make sure to stay out of the TARDIS." With that, he sauntered out of the room.

Martha felt slightly relieved now that he left and leaned her head back against the wall, dark brown hair obstructing her view. She held her hand - the Doctor's hand - in front of her. "How did this even happen?" she mumbled to herself.

"Every problem has a solution," Gwen's voice told her, and Martha looked up. She was muttering something under her breath. "Don't worry about it," she said normally.

Gwen walked slowly, concentrating on each step. "You humans are so complicated," she remarked. She always muttered, it seemed. She only stopped to say something in a normal, slow voice to Martha.

"What do you mean?" Martha asked warily.

"Odd way to move about. My way is much preferable - it makes more scientific sense." She fell into a chair.

"Do I want to ask who you are?" she asked, eyeing Gwen's dark-framed face.

"If you can't figure it out by what I've been saying, it's no wonder I'm in the state I'm in." She glanced, muttering, at the storage closet.

"The TARDIS?!" Martha exclaimed incredulously.

"You don't have to say it like that," Gwen said, glancing at Martha oddly as she went back to muttering gibberish.

"How is that even possible?"

Gwen looked over at her, eyebrows creasing automatically in irritation. "Oi! Watch what you're saying! I'm a perfectly organic creature." She leaned her head back in the chair and continued a little more quietly. "Spent most of my life sticking to Gallifrey and rotting in a cellar before the Doctor picked me up. Illegally." She shrugged and began mumbling again.

Martha was about to ask about that - but suddenly noticed something, and gasped.

"What is it?" Rose asked, walking in from the cockpit and looking very much like Martha.

"I don't know," she said truthfully, "There's something..." she put her hand up to her head, the Doctor's lofty hair foreign between her fingers. "In my head."

"There's_ who_ in my _what?"_ the Doctor popped in, Jack's voice heightening in pitch.

"I dunno," she defended. "There's... something out there." She shrugged.

"So it's external?" he asked.

"Must be."

"But it's in your head?"

"Yeah."

He paused for a second, then pulled away from the door and out of sight.

"He hurts to look at," Martha remarked to Rose.

"The Doctor's mentioned that about Captain Jack," she agreed. "Why is that, d'you think?"

Martha looked at the herself currently sitting by Gwen, who was still muttering gibberish. "You really don't know?" she asked.

"What?" Rose asked irritatedly. "What don't I know?"

"Don't tell her yet," Jack's voice called in from the cockpit.

"Tell me what?" Rose demanded.

"Only when you're older."

Rose scowled. "Thought I was through with people tellin' me that."

Suddenly the ship rocked like a stormy sea, then shuddered and creaked before the lights went out with a crackle. The three beings in the main room sat up, alarmed, as the ship became still again.

"Sorry," the Doctor called and poked Jack's head in again, barely visible in the dark. "Seems to be a bit worse than we previously thought."

Mickey muttered something intelligible.

"Oi!" the Doctor protested, "I'm doin' the best I can!"

The lights came back on and Mickey sauntered into the main room. The Doctor glanced up at the lights and scowled.

"Luck," he remarked, then re-entered the cockpit.

"Where exactly are we?" Martha asked Mickey as he sat down. He glanced at her and hesitated before answering.

"Nowhere near Earth," he told her. "In fact, Doctor Cheesecake in there says we're in a different universe altogether."

"He keeps sayin' it's impossible, but it keeps on happenin'," Rose remarked, raising Martha's eyebrows.

"You lot!" the Doctor shouted suddenly from the cockpit, "Get in here!"

There was a millisecond of curious glances before Mickey, Rose, and Martha quickly shot up from their respective seats and made their way to where the Doctor stood, holding up a finger for silence and grasping the ship's makeshift radio.

"...will board," a commanding voice continued. "You will put up no fight nor attempt to escape, or we will destroy your ship and all of its inhabitants."

They looked up as a group at the massive silver warship arriving directly to the front, all of its numerous weapons trained on them.

Gwen appeared at the doorway. "Bloody twats."


	11. Ch 11: Van

**Author's Note: **Sorry I haven't updated in so long! I blame you guys. No one reminded me this was here! x.x  
Well, actually, I shouldn't blame you guys. I was totally distracted by Variet Wall. (Don't look for it here, it's on my sister account. It's a Zelda fanfic. But it just may have a glimpse of the Doctor. ;) )  
Also, don't blame me for the short chapter. It wasn't that I just wanted to put something up quickly. This chapter was always short. Review if you want the next one! 'Cuz I might not remember....

* * *

**Chapter Eleven**

**Van  
**

A disheveled-looking man with messy black hair exploded through a doorway laced with a beaded curtain. He slid onto his knees under a shining silver desk and pressed a brass device into a notch, connecting into it several thick cables. He narrowly avoided hitting his head on the underside of the desk as he whirled to his feet, bending over the buttons and knobs on the messy surface.

In this moment of thought, he had time to realize something odd. He widened his eyes and stared at the steel-covered windshield, slowly raising his thin, bony hand to his unwashed head of hair. He gaped.

That wasn't possible. It just wasn't possible. Not after... what he did. Unless...

"River!" he gasped. His hearts pounded against his ribs. He jerked his hands into motion, whirring dials and creaking levers. His van let out a strained creak and he was pulled to the left as it spun.

"I need to find her! Need to find - use the - there's a signal! River! My sister, I'm coming!"


	12. Ch 12: Welcome Party

**Author's Note: **Sorry... again. You know what, I should stop apologizing to you guys. Not that you don't deserve an apology. It just gets old after a while...  
I'm not sure who, if anyone, is still reading this, but if anyone actually is, than you deserve the next chapter. I still have quite a few to put up, so maybe I'll get to those, too. I wonder if this is as fun to read as it is to write.  
Again, many many thanks to Miache.

* * *

**Chapter Twelve**

**Welcome Party**

The Doctor was the first to step off of Captain Jack's ship into a bright silver docking bay. It was large enough to house nearly four more of their own small ship, but the metallic room was empty enough to hear a pin drop. An important-looking humanoid alien entered and walked toward him, making no doubts about his destination, flanked by three shorter ones. Their eyes appeared to be like a cat's, the pupils stretching from the top to the bottom of each colored iris.

The Doctor lifted Jack's chin in an important way and presented himself as the captain of the ship, smiling.

"I'm Captain Jack Harkness," he said in an official manner. "And to whom do I owe the pleasure?"

The slightly green-tinged humanoid in front of him made no effort to nod, instead looking down his nose - as he was a very tall alien - at the Doctor. "Commander Campton," he introduced without a smile. "Of the War Aeyro Jux. Your crew?"

The others stepped out of the small ship, footsteps echoing loudly off of the shining floor. The Doctor introduced each as they stepped off of the ship. "This is Mickey, Martha, Gwen, and..." He waited for himself to uncomfortably climb down to the silver floor. "This is the Doctor." He clapped Martha on the back.

Commander Campton eyed Martha, sizing her tall, slim figure as if searching for something. "This is the Doctor?" he asked warily.

"You've heard of me?" Martha asked, smiling.

He frowned and lifted his chin a little. "We mustn't underestimate their kind again. Guard!"

One of his shorter followers stood to attention.

"Prep the Suite."

The guard bowed and turned to walk away in an official manner.

Commander Campton turned back toward the Doctor and smiled as a clean adult would at a dirty little child. "Captain Harkness, we've had rooms prepared for you and your crew."

"May I ask," the Doctor said quickly, before the Commander could step away, "Why did you hail us in such a, let's be honest, rude way?"

He smiled that smile of disgust again and ignored the question. "If you could follow me." Commander Campton turned on his heel and began walking toward a door. One of his followers stayed with him and the other waited for the Doctor and his companions to pass.

* * *

"_What _did you say?" the Doctor asked angrily, turning to face the Commander against the starry backdrop of the bridge.

"It's very simple. You have temporal transportation, have you not?"

"No!" he lied, taking a step toward the officer. "And even if we did, we wouldn't use it to help you defeat your enemy!"

"It's quite a noble cause," Commander Campton assured him.

"It's _one man," _Martha said. "You can't tell me you'd go through all this effort just to get _one _man?"

"If you only knew what we'd been through, Doctor," he sighed, shaking his head. "This '_one man'_ is threatening the safety of our entire government. We need to take him down now before he unravels all of our hard work."

"How can one man be so much of a threat to you?"

"You tell me, Doctor." The Commander looked her in the eye. "This is why we've chosen you. We need people who behave like him - people who_ think _like him. Simply chasing after him won't do anything, and he seems to get out of any prison we keep him in. We need to know how he _works."_

"And just how are you going to do that?" Mickey asked.

"I'm going to send you after him." He didn't look away from Martha. "The lot of you. Only _you_ can track him down properly and bring him to us."

Rose crossed Martha's arms. "And what happens if we refuse?"

Campton looked toward her but didn't respond. "Guards!" he called instead, and five shorter aliens came to stand by him. "Escort these men and women to their accommodations."

The guards bowed and removed what looked like silver guns as thin as twigs from their pockets. Four of them ushered the group toward an elevator, but one grabbed Martha's arm.

"You come with me, Doctor," he said, pulling Martha in the other direction.

"Where are you taking him?" the Doctor shouted.

"We have special lodgings for that one," Commander Campton said simply, turning away.

The Doctor, the TARDIS, Mickey, and Rose were led roughly by the arm down an elevator and through a long, silver hallway. At the end of the hallway, each guard pressed a hand to a panel next to a steel door. The doors slid open and the guards threw their respective prisoners simultaneously into identical cells.


End file.
